As you can see with this vote, elections do have consequences! Let’s not let them turn Pennsylvania into Wisconsin, no matter how many Koch-loving hacks we have in the state house: An attempt to pass a controversial amendment to a bill that would restrict union dues collection from state and school employees’ paychecks narrowly failed […]

So, Utah decided to just give the homeless places to live. The results are what anyone with sense, or who has followed the topic would expect: Utah’s Housing First program cost between $10,000 and $12,000 per person, about half of the $20,000 it cost to treat and care for homeless people on the street. Imagine [...]

Update5: The GA will be held in Times Square. The occupiers were headed to the Red Steps except that the police are listening into OWS communications now and they decided to head it off by ejecting tourists.

Update4: The #OWS hashtag says that Plan B has been activated and that all marchers are to head to PERSEUS. I assume you know what that means. Another batsignal? Something seasonal? Sounds like fun.

Soooooo, get out of Times Square, guys. People are getting thrown off the Red Stairs. It looks like the tourists are getting the boot, not the protestors. The protestors were not on the Red Stairs. So, the cops have just pissed off a bunch of tourists and shoppers. So, NOW the tourists are walking away saying, “Police State!”. Great way to welcome people to the city. Nice going, Bloomberg.

Update3: Police are moving into Times Square. The march has broken up but this isn’t significant. The occupiers are dispersed but the occupation movement tends to move in mysterious ways. They’re at the Red Steps in Times Square. There is a people’s march going on somewhere ahead.

OK, what are they up to??

There is a proposal to go back to Zuccotti. But someone (is that Dwayne? *swoon*) says that they should stay in Times Square and have a general assembly there.

Update2: The occupiers are headed towards Times Square. They were kettled briefly at 29th street and 7th avenue. But the kettling nets were trampled by occupiers who sprinted away. So, the cops let everyone go. Now, the occupiers are marching more or less quietly to Times Square by walking in the street. The cops are also walking in the street. Tim the cameraman at The Other 99 livestream reports that the cops are targeting media, roughing them up and arresting them. They are also monitoring the livestreams. By walking to Times Square, the protestors are going to blend in with the theatre crowd.

There are people being tased!!

They are being forced out of the Times Square area. Hey, that doesn’t seem right. What if you have tickets?

The police are also looking for people who they think may be functioning in an organizational capacity. One of the march “pacers” has been arrested.

Update: The Occupiers have taken to the street. They were headed towards Rev. Cooper’s house. He has been representing Trinity Church. But they were diverted by police. So, they took to the streets, running the wrong way down one way streets. The police don’t have good tactics to handle that. There are now arrests in progress. You can find some of the livecoverage at Wearetheother99. Here is their livestream. http://occupystreams.org/item/occupy-nyc-the-other-99

New chant: “Move like water, burn like fire”

The street is now kettled. Police are moving in saying that no one is getting off this block.

Looks like the cameraman may be about to be arrested.

Damn, I’m sorry to have missed this one. You have to check out this video if you haven’t seen it yet. The occupiers built a ladder and went over the fence into Duarte Park at 6th and Canal. And who was the first one over? It was a bishop and several other clergy. They dropped down to the other side but this whole idea was planned in advance because a second ladder was dropped into the park and connected to the first ladder so that occupiers didn’t have to jump down.

Sorry, I’m blogging on my iPad so I can’t embed without major headaches.

This is absolutely the right thing to do. We are seeing a replay of the demonstration at the Temple with Trinity Church playing the role of Caiphas, cooperating with the Romans to keep the riff-raff in check. I know the church has been generous with their hospitality and hot chocolate. But what the occupiers need is a space. Now is the time to make a commitment. Otherwise, the Trinity has lost sight of what it means to be Christian. You do not want to be the ones who threw out the people protesting the money changers and the jackbooted thugs they support.

We’ve replaced crucifixion with indefinite detention but the obliteration of the protestor will happen just the same. Where is Obama in all of this? Will he allow the scenes of oppression and thuggery spread from Cairo and Syria to NYC?

Is this a free country? And where are the rest of the Christians? Shouldn’t they be down there, helping each other over the fence?

Mass arrests at 29th street and 7th avenue. The cameraman captured the arrest of some dude on a bike. He was dragged off his bike and punched in his face before he was arrested.
The kettling net has been cut and occupiers are running through it. Camera persons are being harrassed. The Democracy Now cameraman was arrested.

Yep, OWS was going to have their GA on the red steps but the police were listening into their communications. So before the occupiers could even get to the steps, the cops cleared everyone off of them. The people who were on them were tourists, who started to mutter about a “police state” as they were forced to get off of them.
So that backfired on the NYPD and proved a point.
Then I went to occupywallst.org and saw a big greeting from Mumia Abu-Jamal and thought WTF?? Why is it that no matter how earnestly a movement starts to address the concernes of real people it always devolves to Mumia? I have seen this so many times that it almost made me sick. Once again, some fanatical contingent of people are willing to sacrifice a great movement in order to free this one man who by all accounts actually did the thing that put him in jail. He even was stupid enough to represent himself in court. It would be like the Tea Party sticking up a poster on their site that says “Lee Harvey Oswald was framed”. It’s a HUGE distraction and gives everyone a bad impression. If I thought this guy was innocent, I’d start a different movement to free him. I wouldn’t always glom on to something with a lot of promise hoping for publicity with the end result of killing the movement that is forced into association with Mumia. What’s going to happen now is that we’re all going to have to stop and argue this case again. What a tremendous waste of time and opportunity. I realize that the structure of OWS is horizontal and no one really has the right to prevent the message from making the front page but I really wish someone had more sense than to give the poster the system password. That’s just fricking irresponsible. Bill O’Reilly is going to have a field day with that and all of our hard work for OWS is going to circle the drain.
So incredibly foolish. I’m really disappointed.

The Mumia thing is a facepalm du jour. I think that the Occupy movement is going to have to admit that a horizontal structure is just as bad as a vertical structure. Some things need to be set while others require being light on your feet. It’s a tough balancing act.

Something to think about … the Occupy-suppressors clearly know how Free Mumia hijackers and other suckfish-barnacles will disrupt Occupy actions and repel and irritate onlookers. How many of these
Free Mumia hijackings might be staged by undercover government agents or freelance breitbarters and ratfuckers?

Perhaps the Mumia’s Not My Problem counterchant might be just as useful against false-flag “Free Mumia” governarcs as it would be against real Free Mumianists.

In nature, you never find a shark without suckfish. The sharks will just have to find a way to make sure that the onlookers can tell the sharks from the suckfish. Perhaps the legitimate occupists will have to learn to use an endlessly-adaptable chant-module. My suggestion for such a module goes like this : ” (whatever’s) not my problem.” So if a hundred suckfish start chanting Free Mumia! a thousand sharks can start chanting Mumia’s Not My Problem. That should make the difference clear. Let the Free Mumianists explain Free Mumia.

One hopes some of the Occupists are exchanging personal contact information with eachother so that they can stay in touch with eachother between Occupies and start exchanging thoughts and information about goals and visions and methods and stuff for applying in daily life between Occupies.

“I have been working at Occupy Wall Street since week 2. I am involved heavily in several working groups. I attend meetings and actions every day of the week. But this? This is bullshit. Here’s the thing y’all. Yes, the criminal justice system is brutally unfair. It is racist. It is classist. It is broken beyond all repair. The prison industrial complex has swallowed any hopes that a poor black man ever had to a right to a fair trial in this country. HOWEVER, Mumia? Mumia is guilty as hell. Guilty, guilty, guilty. He stood over Officer Daniel Faulkner with a gun registered in his own name and shot him point blank in the face in front of multiple witnesses. Because of Mumia’s involvement with The Black Panthers, because of his background as a guerilla journalist, and because of the undoubtedly racist climate of Frank Rizzo’s police department in the 1980’s, Mumia’s conviction became a cause celibre. I do not believe in the death penalty. I think that our justice system is a sham. But slapping Mumia’s face on the front of the OWS website is insulting and offensive to all of us who have worked so hard these past few months. This movement is about socio-economic inequality and corporate corruption. It is not about promoting the latest Free Mumia rally on campus. Please show some respect for the legions of us who have put in so much time, and do not glorify the convicted murderer of a police officer. No matter how many college kids wear his face on their shirts.”

I am sorry, in to every group the nuts must fall. Someone you otherwise admire and agree with also agrees with the free Mumia folks or is one of them. It happens. It’s kind of like you go to theater camp and have a great summer and fall in love with just everyone and at the end of the summer find out that one of your very favorite older super talented actors who is so nice, is a right wing Nazi youth type who uses the N word.

One of the concerns I have about the actual physical “Occupations” is that they take over the MSM’s (supposed) reporting of the Occupy Movement and you do find a lot of (supposed) Maxists at the camps. They are always the one some dumbass reporter seeks out for comment….but it’s almost always not MY comment that I hear.

I am anxious for Phase II of OWS to take hold and point the way so that things stay on-message. (To me that message is “Corporate Money = Corrupt Politicians” – get the money out of politics.)

Right now I am pointed to DC for the January 17th Occupy Congress Event. I really believe that we need big statements to sustain us through the winter and this appears to be one that I can participate in (although my other half frowns every time I talk about my trip – he just doesn’t like me to spend money. I’ve told him if he can organize an Occupy Vail (Arizona) event for 100,000 people I’ll stay home!)

Anyway, if anyone is planning on being in DC for the Occupy Congress march, let me know – it’s alway good to have a friend.

For now at least, every Occupist may have their own message. And in spirit, Occupy may well be a Space For Study among other things. The various flavors of Organized Marxocialist have decided that Occupy is a valuable possession and they have targetted it and are aquiring (or have aquired) their target. As long as the people of Occupy realize that the survival of their movement depends on viewing the Marxists the way an organism views a viral invader, they may be able to take preventive and pre-emptive countermeasures.

Hopefully also, normal-people members of/participants in Occupy are ready to withstand the spectacle of the Anarcists and the Marxists
treating Occupy as a battleground and a treasury to be fought on and over for a high-value leadership monopoly. Hopefully as that happens,
the normal-people participants can understand and absorb the early spirit and replicate and evolve it in thousands of separate unsubvertible micro-cells and movement groups.

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement. If other people also decide “Blank’s not my problem” whenever a bunch of suckfish chant Free The Whatever! , then it may well be tried. I offer it in case it may be useful.

I once thought of a similar thing to use in appropriate circumstances.
” Thank you for inviting me to carry your baggage, but I’m not your bellhop”. And if they continue inviting you to carry their baggage, you could say . . . ” I hear you ringin’, but I ain’t hoppin’. “

Body: This paper, or pre-draft, or sketch, or whatever it is, started out with this title: "With The 12-Point Platform, this won't happen: An aristocracy of credentialism in the 20%." But then I realized I'd gotten in deeper than I thought -- one of those posts were the framework and the notes overwhelm the original idea -- and as it tur […]

This is a big bunch of catch-up, here, 'cause it's been a helluva few weeks. Gaius Publius interviewed Alan Grayson on Virtually Speaking, where Grayson discussed "how he 'cracked the nut' that allows him to get progressive legislation passed. Part of his secret - his goal is to be a person who 'gets things done for the progress […]